


A Way Out

by Lori2279



Category: One Life to Live, The Bold and the Beautiful, mentions of Days of Our Lives, mentions of General Hospital
Genre: Brother/Sister bonding, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-10
Updated: 2014-07-10
Packaged: 2018-02-08 08:07:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1933332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lori2279/pseuds/Lori2279
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Steffy & Liam marry because Liam knocked Steffy up Hope wants out of Forrester.  She gets it from an old friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First B&B story ever. Please let me know what you think.

Bridget Forrester looked at the menu in front of her, considering her choices. She looked up when she heard someone call her name and smiled at her younger sister.

“Hey. Thank God you picked Italian. The food on the plane was disgusting and I am starving,” Hope said before she gave Bridget a hug and sat down. “I want chicken in the worst way.”

“Hey,” Bridget laughed as she sat back down. “Where’s Rick?”

“He’s making sure our luggage gets to our rooms,” Hope nodded. 

“So, do I get to know what this is all about?”

“I thought we’d eat first but if you want to get right into it, we can do that too.”

“Well, it’s all very mysterious,” Bridget admitted. “You call me and ask if I’ll meet you in Atlantic City, but I can’t mention it to Mom or, if I should talk to him, Dad. You and Rick aren’t joining a government agency, are you?”

“No,” Hope smiled. “But I am leaving Forrester.”

“What? I thought Hope for the Future was doing wonderfully.”

“It is and I’m sure it will continue to do so under the guidance of whomever Eric puts in charge but I can’t stay.”

“Is this because of Liam and Steffy?”

“I can’t stay and watch them have the life I wanted with him,” Hope shook her head. “Thankfully I recently received an out.”

“What kind of an out?”

“My adoption by Nick was never revoked,” Hope confessed. “But when Mom went back to Ridge, Nick didn’t want to confuse the situation or disrupt my life anymore that it had been already, so he backed off. I guess he heard through the family grapevine about what happened, so he gave me a call. We had dinner and he dropped the news that I was still legally his daughter and that I had trust funds from both him and Massimo.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No,” Hope shook her head. “Massimo’s is an account in the Caymans but Nick’s includes several companies that need some guidance and leadership. Rick and I have been talking to Connor Davis-”

“Wow, I haven’t heard that name in a long time,” Bridget interrupted.

“Yeah, I know. He was very surprised to hear from me and Rick. Anyway, we’ve been talking to him about bringing together all these companies and making them part of a conglomerate.”

“Like Buchanan Enterprises or ELQ?” Bridget asked.

“Yeah,” Hope nodded. “And oddly enough, one of the more recent acquisitions was a winery that was owned by a man who had married one of the Buchanan granddaughters.”

“What else is there?” Bridge asked. She was curious about what her ex had gifted her sister with.

“A design company, two cosmetics companies, a department store, and a newspaper,” Hope listed the inventory. “Nick picked them all up at auctions.”

“So they’re doing badly?”

“He wanted to give me a challenge.”

“And so he did,” Rick said as he joined them. “Sorry I took so long. Dad called.”

“How’s he taking the news?” Hope asked as she sipped her drink.

“What news?” Bridget looked at her brother.

“I quit Forrester,” Rick admitted.

“What?”

“I want to help build something from the ground up,” Rick said. “I don’t want to just be given something.”

Hope smiled, “I think I finally came up with a name.”

“Okay.”

“Storm Beacon Designs,” she said proudly. “Grandma always said family was a beacon and I want to honor Uncle Storm.”

“I like that,” Bridget said with a fond smile.

“Me too,” Rick agreed just before their waiter came over. After they’d ordered he turned to his youngest sister, “Hope, I was taking a look at the papers concerning your trust. We missed Nick’s last acquisition.”

“Let me guess, I own a diamond mine somewhere in the South Pacific,” Hope giggled.

“No, a hotel in downtown L.A.,” Rick amended.

“What?”

“Yeah, it’s an old place. I called Mom’s real estate agent and had him take a quick look at the records. It’s empty.”

“Cool,” Hope nodded. “We’ll have to take a look when we get home.”

“He sent pictures,” Rick dug out his phone and found what he was looking for before showing it to his sister.

“Oh, I love that,” Hope enlarged the picture as Bridget leaned over to peek at it.

“I love that couch,” Bridget nodded. “Very old Hollywood.”

“Straight out of a Bogart movie,” Hope smiled as she continued to look at the photos. At the last one her head tilted and then she looked up at her brother.

“What?” Rick knew the look in her eyes. Every Logan woman got it just before an idea tumbled from their mouth.

“Connor said that it’d be a good idea to make all the companies part of a conglomerate, right?”

“Right,” Rick nodded slowly. “So?”

“So, what if this was our headquarters?” Hope motioned to the phone.

“That’s not a bad idea,” Bridget nodded. “Think about it. Hotels are a pain to run and all those people you have to deal with?”

“I realize I am overly polite and nice, but I couldn’t deal with everyone that an owner would have to deal with on a daily basis without slitting my wrists.”

Rick nodded in agreement, “Point taken on both counts. So you want to make this the base of operations for our currently unnamed company?”

“EHL,” Hope nodded.

“What?”

“EHL,” she repeated. “I want to use Grandma’s initials for the company name.”

“That’s a good idea,” Bridget nodded. “It’ll help keep you off the radar when everyone starts wondering who the new company in town is.”

“We should keep it in house,” Rick posed. “Only family on the board.”

“The grandchildren of Beth Logan,” Hope expanded. “You, me, Bridge, RJ, Will, Marcus, and Jack.”

“There’s a problem with that,” Bridget countered. “RJ, Will, and Jack are too young to vote at board meetings.”

“So we’d have to tell Mom and Aunt Katie,” Hope nodded.

“And Mom will get two votes.”

“No, Mom gets one vote.”

“She votes for RJ and Jack,” Bridget pointed out.

“Mom doesn’t have custody of Jack. Nick votes for Jack,” Hope said. “And I’m not even sure she’s got custody of RJ.”

“Well, Aunt Katie’s definitely allowed to vote for Will,” Rick pointed out. “So, that means we might have to deal with Bill.”

“Oh goodie,” Hope rolled her eyes.

“It won’t be so bad, Sis. Aunt Katie can vote Will’s proxy and Mom can vote RJ’s.”

“What about Marcus?” Bridget asked.

“He’s Aunt Donna’s son, so he’s Grandma’s grandson,” Rick nodded.

“We’ll have to figure out stock distribution,” Hope said as she finally handed over her brother’s phone to him again when she saw the waiter headed their way. “For now, let’s enjoy dinner.”

“Here, here,” Bridget nodded.


	2. Chapter 2

“Wow,” Hope did a 360 turn taking in the lobby of the old Titan Hotel. “This is amazing.”

“It’s not bad,” Rick agreed.

“Not bad? This is incredible. I wonder what’s out here,” Hope went up a short flight of stairs to a landing and opened the glass doors. “Rick, come look at this courtyard.”

Rick laughed and followed his sister outside, “Nice. I wonder if we could get the fountain working again.”

“It’s worth a try,” Hope nodded as she looked up. “The prospectus says that the top two floors are penthouses. Maybe we could remodel them into two penthouses and each take one?”

“Sounds good to me,” Rick nodded. “It’s not like I can keep living in Dad’s guesthouse now that I don’t work for the family company anymore.”

“And living with Mom now that I don’t work for Forrester either wouldn’t exactly be pleasant. But, what do we do in the meantime?”

“Grin and bear it,” Rick suggested. “We’ll figure something out.”

“Maybe we can stay with Aunt Donna,” Hope posed.

“That’s not a bad idea,” Rick nodded.

“Or Nick,” Hope offered. “I talked to him yesterday and he said if Mom or Eric gave us too hard a time about quitting, we were welcome at the Marone mansion.

“If I thought it wouldn’t give my dad a heart attack, I’d say yes.”

“Aunt Donna it is,” Hope nodded. “He’ll understand.”

“Hey, you don’t have to say no for yourself just because I can’t live there.”

“I just feel like we should be a united front when it comes to all this,” Hope motioned around them as she walked back inside.

“And we will be,” Rick agreed as he followed her. “Doesn’t mean we have to be together all the time.”

“Okay,” Hope conceded. “You stay with Aunt Donna and I’ll move in with Nick until the penthouses are ready to live in.”

“We need contractors and an architect,” Rick looked around them.

“A plumber,” Hope added, “An electrician.”

“Someone who can restore old furniture,” Rick started to type things into his phone.

“Carpet cleaners,” Hope looked at the floor and walked over to where the front desk of the hotel was. “This will be a good post for building security. There’s an office behind the desk where they can set up a surveillance room.”

Rick kept typing.

“We’ll have to program the elevators to restrict access to the levels where we live.”

“Good idea,” Rick nodded.

“EHL offices under the penthouses and then we decide which business gets which floors,” Hope continued. “No walking in without checking in at the desk down here and with the desk on the floor they’re going to.”

“Agreed,” Rick said. “We’ll need a conference room unless you want to hold the board meetings in one of our living rooms.”

“That might work for the time being,” Hope nodded. “But once we have everything set up, I’d like to keep business at the office as much as we can.”

“Good plan,” Rick agreed.

“Mom call you yet?” Hope asked.

“Yeah,” Rick admitted. “You?”

“This morning,” Hope nodded. “She thinks we’re wrecking our lives.”

“No,” Rick shook his head. “We’re working on our lives.”

“I like that,” Hope smiled. “She wants to have dinner.”

“I know. What are the chances she’ll wait until after we eat to start talking about us coming back to the company?”

“Not good,” Hope shook her head. “First she’ll start about our snap decisions of quitting Forrester.”

“Then she’ll harp about us taking off for forty-eight hours without telling anyone,” Rick continued.

“At that point we’ll try to defend ourselves,” Hope pointed out as she sat down on the stairs. “We’re adults and while I still live in her home, I do not have clear my travel plans with her. You definitely don’t because you don’t live in her home.”

Rick joined her, “After that, she’ll probably circle back around to us quitting and try to convince us to come back. She’ll tell us that she’ll talk to Eric and smooth the way.”

“Then we’ll probably get defensive and say it’s our lives. She’ll say we’re acting like children. I think we’ll be out of there before we even open the menu,” Hope decided.

“I say we get pizza after we’re done,” Rick decided.

“Sold,” Hope nodded. “Maybe we should put a gym in somewhere in the building.”

“Not a bad idea,” Rick mused.

“Maybe the first floor should be amenities for all the floors to use. A gym, a cafeteria, etc,” Hope thought aloud. 

“What about a café instead of a cafeteria?” Rick suggested.

“Could work,” Hope nodded. “We have a lot of remodeling to get done.”

“Yes, we do,” Rick agreed. “We also have to have a meeting with our family.”

“Once Eric finds out about this, he might just have that heart attack after all,” Hope pointed out.

“I know,” Rick nodded. “Maybe we should use dinner tomorrow night to make the announcement. We can tell Mom where and when, then call up Aunt Katie, Nick, and Marcus and invite them along. Once we’re all sitting and have a drink in our hands, we tell them the news.”

“Are you and Bridge sure about the division of stock?” Hope asked for what was probably the tenth time.

“Twenty percent for you, fifteen for me and Bridge, then twelve point five for Marcus, Will, Jack, and RJ,” Rick nodded firmly. “That’s the way it’s going to be. We already had Connor draw up the proxy papers for Aunt Katie, Mom, and Nick to sign along with the division of stock papers.”

“Speaking of RJ, are we sure we want Mom voting his shares? I don’t want to sound like I don’t trust her, but Rick, you know how she’s going to react when we tell her all this.”

“Yes, but what are we going to do? Get Ridge to vote his shares?”

“Rock meet hard place,” Hope sighed.  
“Let’s talk about something else,” Rick decided.

“One more thing about the proxy papers and then we can change the subject,” Hope said.

“Shoot.”

“Connor has to word Aunt Katie’s very carefully. I don’t trust Bill not to try and grab a piece of things if their marriage goes south again.”

“I think we can eliminate Steffy from possible problems. But what do we do if something happens to Aunt Katie?” Rick asked quietly. He hated thinking about it but Aunt Katie’s health would always be fragile.

Hope thought for a moment before she answered, “Aunt Donna. We’ll talk to them both. Aunt Katie has to understand why we don’t want Bill involved even though he’s Will’s father.”

“Considering how he feels about us? Yeah, I think she’ll understand.”

“Okay, let’s go,” Hope got up and pulled her brother with her out of the lobby.

“Where are we going?”

“You choose,” Hope said as they walked down the street to Rick’s car. “We can go either go to San Marino or Van Nuys.”

“Why?”

“There’s a Bartlett’s right outside San Marino. I want to check it out considering we now own it. In Van Nuys there’s an Army Navy Surplus store. I want a jeep.”

“San Marino,” Rick opened his car and the siblings got in.

“Where’s the file on Bartlett’s?” Hope asked.

“Hang on,” Rick reached into the back seat and pulled out a file. “There you go.”

“Thanks,” Hope leaned back in her seat and got comfortable as she read and Rick drove. “They’re not as huge as some department stores. It seems they only cater to the very wealthy.”

“Then putting a store near San Marino works,” Rick nodded. “Dad mentioned these people a while back. He’s wanted to do business with them for years but he couldn’t get a foot in the door.”

“I think I know why,” Hope nodded as she pointed. “Rumor has it they have been in competition with Fenmore for years. Bartlett’s has a branch just outside Genoa City and since Forrester has always been one of Fenmore’s main suppliers-“

“They won’t do business with anyone that Fenmore does business with,” Rick finished.

“Exactly,” Hope nodded. “But I just got the best idea. We have two cosmetics companies, a fashion house, and an in with Jackie M Designs. We could do exclusive, Rick.”

“Seriously?”

“Why not? If these things are offered at certain locations, people are going to think there’s a reason and they’ll come in. They’ll look. They’ll buy.”

Rick nodded, “That’s pretty smart, Sis.”

“Thank you. Hmm,” Hope hummed as she read.

“What?”

“It says here that all the stores used to include a café on the premises but that they were all closed down sometime in the eighties.”

“Okay,” Rick wasn’t sure where she was going with this.

“How’s CJ these days?”

“Fine, I think. Why?”

“And Insomnia?”

“Really?” Rick got it.

“It may not be exclusive but I think that’s a good thing. It’s already got the name. Bartlett’s has always catered to the very wealthy older set. I want to change that. I want to appeal to people our age with money to burn. A coffee shop like Insomnia could attract a younger demographic. We keep the current designers as long as their clothes sell and add Storm Beacon. We weed through the cosmetics they offer and maybe we replace a couple of them with Melador and Jax.”

“What about the winery and the newspaper?”

“I was actually considering seeing if Grandpa wanted to come aboard for the winery,” Hope admitted. “He’s getting tired of dealing with the Oil Barons of Texas. One family in particular is pissing him the hell off.”

“And the paper?”

“Do you know any reporters looking for a job?”

“We could always offer Aunt Katie a job,” Rick joked.

"Well, there's Caroline's step-mother," Hope suggested.

"How is it the only writers we know are connected to Bill?" Rick frowned.

"We'll find someone. There are probably journalism students looking for jobs right now. We'll put ads in the paper at UCLA, USC, San Diego State," Hope started to list schools. "We just need a new name for the paper. It's not going to cover just Salem anymore."

"Daily Planet," Rick smirked.

"And there's all the proof anybody ever needed that you watched far too much Superman as a kid," Hope shook her head. "But let's split the difference. Instead of the Salem Courier, we'll call it the Daily Courier."

"Sounds perfect," Rick nodded as he parked the car. "Here we are."

Hope looked up and happened to see a couple of older women with obvious plastic surgery and hair that didn't move even as a breeze tossed around the blossoms that had fallen from the trees get out of a long black limo and head for the entrance, "If that is an average customer, I am definitely calling CJ."

"Give him my best," Rick frowned.


End file.
